Out In The Be-Bop Night- With Nelson Algren’s Walk On The Wild Side In Mind

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Hoke Stover (Hoke his real first name, his Christian name if he was a Christian, and if a Christian he had been baptized, a cause of some dispute since no church records showed such an event, in fact no civil records showed he had been born in the county that he had grown in all his youth pestered life) had no kin to speak of so leaving home, leaving Ardmore out in the Appalachia hill country, the hills and hollows of mountain legend, would no cause for tears or frets. Hoke had no kin so it was told, or rather, better, he had some very attenuated kinship relationships. His mother, well his mother as far as he knew, was a whore, who let any man at her whether he had the price or not, she was so addled- brained she let them have at her on credit and forget who owed her what come settling time, usually Friday, mine pay day, or if she “took at shine to a man,” she might give just as freely and so a whore, a whore in deep fundamentalist Protestant mountain talk, although she was long gone to Philadelphia and some two bit whorehouse, or something like that.

His father, Zeke, was unclear, or better uncaring about her fate, and therefore didn’t want to talk about it or bother about it at all when Hoke was young and full of such mother questions (although Zeke had been one of her “take a shining too” free loves, that part was known far and wide when mountain shaming time came). Zeke had in any case taken up with another woman (it was not clear as well whether Zeke had married his mother or they had just cohabitated for a time not a fine distinction in hill and hollow country where some such relationships might come under some kinship legal ban), Ella, who had a brood of her own, and in his turn Zeke had taken off with yet another woman leaving Hoke behind at her house to fend for himself. So, yes, Hoke had no kin to speak of as he set off one day to seek his fame and fortune in the world. All he knew for certain, all his father knew for certain when he passed on the information, was that the Stover clan had originally come to these American shores around 1800 after being kicked out of England for pig-stealing or some such stealing and had been just one step ahead of the law in any case so being kicked out would have occurred sooner or later. His mother’s people, some off-center Irish mix, maybe Anglo-Irish Catholic had been forced out of Ireland starving or close to it during the Great Famine of the 1840s and once off the famine ships in New York had drifted west with the land hungry and wound up in Appalachia, Not having the sense or wherewithal to move further west when the land turned sour they had settled in the human sink until his mother’s whorish generation. And she headed east.

So one bright sunny morning Hoke headed to center of Ardmore, hopped on the local ramshackle bus that would take him to Louisville and then from there take a big old Greyhound bus to Memphis, the Memphis of his dream fame and fortune. His father having been there once when on leave during the war (World War II for anybody who was asking) and had never gotten over it and passed on that dream scene to his son .Of course Zeke had been there merely on a three day pass and so had no thought of trying to make his fame or fortune there (or anywhere else as it turned out since he was nothing but a rolling stone) and so left no wisdom to his son about how to go about such a task. In fact Hoke was singularly ill-prepared for almost any dream search since no one had bothered to tell to go to school and learn something, learn a trade or craft and so all he knew was how to scavenge, scavenge for soda bottles, cooper bits, silver this and that, lost pennies and moving odd lots of moonshine when he was old enough (fourteen) to handle a car on those back roads. Nevertheless unread and unlearned he was off to the bright lights of the city and he, like all youth, at least all youth that had been subject to some dream quest, figured he would be able to wing it. He would have to.

Hoke did have one thing going for him, going strong if things got tough. He was good-looking, girl swooning good-looking, country girls anyway, and while he might not be smart or learned he never lacked for female company when he wanted it (or better when he had money since country girls were not difference from their city brethren when it came to their wanting habits). He figured if he was the son of a whore (he knew from Zeke whores were bad but in his moral universe only bad because they had left guys like Zeke and Hoke to fend for themselves when the next best thing came along) then the worst thing that could happen was that he would work, ah, servicing woman ( be a gigolo but he did not know the word, where would a simple country boy come across such an word, or the concept, all he knew was that he could make money at it or be put up by some woman if things got tough).

Things did get tough since nobody was hiring illiterates, white illiterates anyway, in the dead air 1960s night and so he found himself sliding down to Memphis’ skid row as his money ran out, his prospects went dead and even his one feeble attempt to scavenge went awry when he found out you had to be “connected” to run even such a nondescript operation as that in the big city, hell, even soda bottles. And so as night follows day he wound up on Beale Street, first trying to pimp himself off to the passing clientele, to the ladies, but since he did not have the “front,” he was all soiled jeans and sweaty stained shirt, maybe hadn’t showered in a while and needed a shave, they passed him by. Although the queer boys, the homos, the sissy boys, seemingly every one, every “different” boy from good homes or bad, in the South who could make it to Memphis (from Tupelo, Selma, Greenwood, Clarksville and points south, took a run at him), No sale, no dice, he was not that way. No sale for a while.

But one night, one desperate night, only change in his pocket, Christ,dimes, room rent due in a day or too he was almost ready to face that indignation, to let a sissy boy have at him, when he met Mister Jonathan Tucker, Mister Jonathan Tucker, a sissy boy scion of the famous Memphis Tucker family who after trying to proposition him without success (although that was a close thing) took him under his wing. And that wing included an undisclosed Tucker family interest in, among other things, Fanny Mae’s high-end whorehouse over on Beale and Main. Hoke, suitably dressed and given a little polish by Mister Jonathan Tucker was to be a “protector” for the girls who worked there. And Hoke took to the job like a magnet although he felt since he was a protector he shouldn’t have had to pay for an evening with one of the girls when he got frisky. Still after hanging around the ladies, a couple who had taken to him as an older brother, in that establishment for a while he found he had a little more respect for his mother, thought a little less unkindly when the word whore was spouted forth by some walking daddy with big eyes, greenbacks and quirky habits. Maybe he would start a stable of his own, a couple anyway, maybe Mister Jonathan Tucker would stake him to some flash dough. Yes, he, Hoke Stover, was on his way to fame and fortune, no question…